Benefits of milling your own grain?

[Meatball358]

Sorry if its a noobish question, but what are the benefits of milling your own grain before you brew as opposed to having the HBS you order from mill your grain for you as you order it??

 

[Captain_Bigelow]

Lasts longer and you can buy in bulk to save some $$$.

If you mill it in the shop you really need to use it within a couple of weeks, whereas unmilled grain can last months.

 

[user 40839]

What Bigelow said. Most LHBS sell, let's say, milled 2-row for $1.50 a pound, often higher in the bigger cities. (I've been charged $1.75 a lb here in the SF Bay Area).

You can snag a 50lb sack of unmilled 2-row from Morebeer for $32, which is just 64 cents a pound. If you brew enough, especially 10 gallon batches, your mill will pay for itself VERY quickly. Better yet, if you have friends who brew, or are part of a homebrew club, you can split bags of specialty grains, which drops the price even more. Three of us recently snagged a few 50lb sacks of Crystal malts for $45 each, which broke down to $30 each for 17lbs of 40 and 60!

 

[dogtailale]

What Bigelow said. Most LHBS sell, let's say, milled 2-row for $1.50 a pound, often higher in the bigger cities. (I've been charged $1.75 a lb here in the SF Bay Area).

You can snag a 50lb sack of unmilled 2-row from Morebeer for $32, which is just 64 cents a pound. If you brew enough, especially 10 gallon batches, your mill will pay for itself VERY quickly. Better yet, if you have friends who brew, or are part of a homebrew club, you can split bags of specialty grains, which drops the price even more. Three of us recently snagged a few 50lb sacks of Crystal malts for $45 each, which broke down to $30 each for 17lbs of 40 and 60!

I agree with you 100% with what you said above. But 32$ for a 50lb sack does that include shipping. If so hook me up.

 

[dogtailale]

Brother Brewer I checked the two shops in my hood 44 & 50 for the same sack.

morebeer morebeer morebeer

 

[carrotmalt]

Brother Brewer I checked the two shops in my hood 44 & 50 for the same sack.

morebeer morebeer morebeer

I looked at morebeer for bulk grain before, but with shipping it wasn't any better than my local prices which are about what yours are. I can't remember exact numbers, but shipping 50 pounds of grain aint cheap!

 

[jsullivan02130]

My club does a bulk buy. I just got a 55 lb. sack of Canadian two-row for $24.

 

[user 40839]

Ah, yeah - I'm lucky in that I'm a 45 minute drive from their main store in Concord, CA, so I can just go buy it retail. The only other thing you could do in that case is arrange a group buy through a club - see Mr. Sullivan's post above mine for his success in that.

 

[rico567]

It's a matter of scale. If I were brewing only a 5-gal batch a month, there's no way I'd do it. Where I order (Midwest) will mill the grains free anyhow. Volume brings economy of scale, particularly if you're talking about shelling out $150-plus for a custom mill for brewing grains, and then whatever you've got in mounting & motorizing it, even if you zero out your labor.
Since I'm now brewing enough to order 2-row by the 50 pound sack, I built a mill.....but I don't brew so much that I'm about to invest a few hundred in that area. I bought a Corona-type mill for less than $20 on eBay, mounted it in an old paint bucket, and I'm good to go. See: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-junk-corona-mill-station-90849/index21.html#post1408147

As far as being able to get the big sacks of malt at a good price.....as has been said, it's all a question of delivery, which comes back to scale. If it's FedEx delivering you one sack, that's not gonna be cheap.